Gentrification in London
Current definition:
Our definition:
Data:
Average MSOA incomes have remained fairly stable between 2012 and 2020, when taking inflation into account.
This boxplot shows the real income medians for London MSOAs, in 2020 prices.
Gentrification is where an area rapidly changes its population, caused by an influx of wealthier households, which can cause a displacement of the previous population due to increasing unaffordability of rent and local services provided, resulting in the breakup of established communities and social networks.
The influx of more affluent residents in lower income areas, relative to the residents that were already there and displacement of the previous population.
Identification of gentrified areas
- Changes in income: Income estimates for small areas, 2010/12 - 2018/20, MSOA level, 2020 prices
- Population changes: Census 2021 compared to Census 2011
Context
- House price changes for 2010 to 2023
- Changes in primary school applications between 2013/14 and 2023/24
Area Incomes
The income distributions are broadly similar across years. Starting with 2012,
then 2014,
2016,
2018,
and 2020.
However, if we look at 2012 and 2020 only, we see that there are some differences in the distribution of incomes.
Compared to 2012, there are more incomes in 2020 that centre towards the middle of the distribution.
and fewer incomes at the higher end of the distribution.
This means that, although the median incomes are not very different between the two years, incomes are lower in the highest income bracket in 2020, compared to 2012.
We can see this more clearly if we look at income levels for different income quinitles.
In 2012, the lowest income quintile had an average income of just under £30k
and the highest just under £50k.
By 2020, incomes had only slightly increased.
The 60% of MSOAs with the lowest incomes in 2012 had slightly higher median incomes in 2020.
The highest income MSOAs in 2012 actually saw a drop in their median incomes in 2020.
If we take a look at the distribution of those changes in income, we see that there are differences between the 2012 quintiles.
Specifically, when looking at quintiles 1 and 5, we see that the percentage changes in income between 2012 and 2020 are a lot higher for areas in the lowest income quintile in 2012 compared to areas in the highest income quintile in that year.
Quintile 1 also has a longer right tail, indicating higher income increases than some more affluent areas.
Here are incomes in 2012 and 2020 plotted.
For the rest of the analysis we are going to concentrate on the areas belonging to quintile 1 in 2012.
This plot shows area incomes in 2012 and 2020 for those areas that were in the lowest income quintile in 2012, with the median incomes for each year annotated. We are interested in the areas with the highest income rises - areas that were below the median in 2012 and above the median in 2020.
And here they are on a map.
There are more people of lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations living in the areas with the highest income increases, compared to the rest of London. There are fewer people of routine occupations, long-term unemployed and students living in those areas compared to the rest of London.
The most remarkable drop is in children under 16 and there are also fewer young (16-29) and older (70+) people living in the areas with the biggest income increases. On the other hand, there are more people between 30 and 69 years living in those areas.
There is a remarkable drop of black communities in those areas.
Fewer families with children and more couples with no children.
Fewer mortgage owners, huge drop in social housing tenants and more people on private rents.
House prices in those areas are lower than the rest of London but higher than the areas in quintile 1 that did not see such big income increases.
However, house prices in those areas increased at a much higher rate than the rest of London and the rest of the areas in quintile 1.
Primary school applications for 2023/24 have dropped in the whole of England, compared to 10 years ago.
This is particularly stark in London.